Labor leaders call to end contractualization

by Tiara Nacario

Labor rights advocates demanded an end to contractualization in Kontra: Untangling the Contractualization Debacle, a forum held at the UP College of Home Economics, Nov. 16.

Leody De Guzman, a member of Bukluran ng mga Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), proposed a legislation to criminalize violators of job security, removing all forms of contractualization and shutting down all manpower agencies or contractors.

Out of the country’s 65 million workers, 40 million Filipino workers were classified as contractuals in their companies in 2014, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Compared with data from 2012, non-regular employment rose with a rate of 16.3 percent.

On the other hand, IBON Foundation recorded only this year around 24.4 million non-regular and agency-hired workers who were found to be in poor quality work.

UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations professor Atty. Rosalio Aragon Jr. traced contractualization’s roots to the early 1900s during the Industrial Revolution when then-businessman Henry Ford began the practice of non-regularization.

The term Fordism was coined after his name, describing a concept characterized by mass production and mass consumption.

Aragon said Fordism introduced the fragmentation and simplification of work tasks—also known as the factory system—where one worker is assigned to one task with the use of standardized parts to manufacture the product.

According to the Labor Code of the Philippines, a regular employee is defined as “an employee who has been engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business of the employer.”

When asked if there’s a possibility to criminalize job security violators, the lawyer said Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) filed a bill abolishing contractualization but failed on the scrutiny of other Congressmen.

However, Aragon clarified that the bill filed by TUCP was not passed.

Despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s attacks against the issue during his campaign and his threats to shut down companies practicing contractualization, Filipinos workers have yet to experience the fulfillment of the chief executive’s pronouncements.

In the meantime De Guzman called for the students’ participation in the fight against contractualization.